


Brought to An End

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Freeform, another accidental 2000 words, i aged everyone back a year for timeline purposes, i dont even really know what this is, slight supernatural crossover if you squint, stiles and lydia are bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-12
Updated: 2013-05-12
Packaged: 2017-12-11 14:45:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/799900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Stiles is finally cleared of all charges, he's been in Pleasant Valley State Prison for just over a year. The day he returns to Beacon Hills, the pack throws him a "Congratulations On No Longer Being A Convicted Serial Killer" party.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brought to An End

     It's six weeks past the trial before the pack can come up with evidence to his innocence that's actually permissable in court. It's another eight before they can actually secure an appeal, and then the court date is set for fourth months after that. The trial drags on for a further six, and so when Stiles is finally cleared of all charges, he's been in Pleasant Valley State Prison for just over a year.

     The day he returns to Beacon Hills, the pack throws him a "Congratulations On No Longer Being A Convicted Serial Killer" party. Lydia organizes it, and Mrs. McCall cooks, so it's a fairly elaborate event, for all that it takes place in the spartan, newly-renovated Hale mansion in the middle of the preserve, but Stiles spends only the first twenty minutes socializing and eating, before he slinks away to puke up almost an entire apple pie, two hot dogs, and a milkshake, all of which Scott had forced upon him. After that, he hides up on the roof, leaning against one of the three chimneys.

* * *

  
     His first week in Pleasant is rough. He's the new guy, which would put him on the bottom of the gen pop 4 totem pole even if he wasn't 17 and pretty, and so he's harassed by each of the gangs in turn. He's used to werewolves, though so, he figures he can manage. How bad can regular humans be?  
     His cellmate is in his late twenties, and of the tall, dark, and deadly variety. His name is Rodriguo, and he's from one of the reservations in the south. When he catches Stiles getting roughed up by a few guys from south central LA, Rodriguo steps in, striking fear into the hearts of the lesser men.  
     Or so Stiles puts it, in a letter to his dad.  
     Rodriguo is fairly kind to Stiles, in the same sort of way Derek was, teaching him the hard-knock lessons of prison. He even gives Stiles his pudding cups at lunch.  
But that only lasts for a few weeks, until Rodriguo has gained Stiles' trust and affection, and then Rodriguo has decided to have some fun with the pretty boy from the suburbs. 

* * *

 

     Stiles was skinny, of course, when he went in, he always had been, side effect of the boundless energy that was constantly trying to escape from him, but that was nothing compared to when he came out. His hipbones and ribs jutted out much too far, and his face was sunken and hollow. His elbows were sharp as razor blades.   
     Mrs. McCall takes one look at him and immediately develops a nutrition plan, replete with fatty casseroles and homebaked pastries.   
     The Sheriff knows to give Stiles room to readjust, room to acquaint himself with the overabundance of free will provided by the outside world. But it's hard, to watch his son cower in the corners, where once he paraded around with nothing less than a death wish.   
     Derek avoids Stiles, doesn't come to the party, doesn't show up unannounced outside his bedroom window, nothing. Stiles doesn't blame him. He doesn't blame any of them for the trepidation with which they now treat him, for their awkward attempts at reintegrating him into the life he left behind.   
     It's not their fault he got broken.

* * *

 

     So he's sitting on the roof, feeling the breeze on his face, the sun on his skin, quite content to sit alone for quite some time, when Allison settles down next to him, having climbed up through one of the disused chimney stacks.   
     "They're all looking for you."  
     Stiles doesn't answer, not immediately. "Are they angry?" He asks eventually, voice void of emotion.  
     "No. Just worried. Especially Scott."  
     Stiles shrugs. "I can take care of myself."  
     Allison laughs, somewhat bitterly. "Since when have they let anyone do that?"

* * *

 

     He lets himself look in the mirror, for the first time, at the black lines scoring across his right hip. They're harsh, ugly, surrounded by half-moon scars. The skin is still slightly swollen, the ink still settling. Stiles still doesn't know what the letters mean, they're in Hebrew, he thinks, maybe Aramaic (though who in that hellhole of a prison would know a half-dead biblical tongue he couldn't imagine). He thinks about looking it up, thinks about deciphering the claim on him, but Stiles can hardly care, not anymore. It bothered him, at first, but now he's just too tired to care. 

* * *

 

     He's with Scott, at Deaton's, watching disinterestedly as his old friend stitches up a collie that'd run afoul of a dropped kitchen knife. Scott is babbling nonsense, trying to soothe both Stiles and the dog, when the little bell over the clinic's front door rings.  
     Scott looks up, sniffs, and rolls his eyes. "Lydia."  
     "Stiles? Are you here?" Lydia click-clacks into the back room, pursing her red-red lips in satisfaction as her eyes alight on her prey. "You were supposed to come over this morning, we were going to take the practice test."  
     Stiles blinks. "I forgot."  
     Lydia huffs a breath out from her nose. "Of course you did. Which is why I set two reminders on your phone."  
     Stiles blinks again. "I left it in my room."  
     "Stiles!"  
     Scott growls, softly. "Lydia."  
     Lydia throws him a glare. "Scott."  
     "Janet!" Stiles chirps, then snorts at his own joke.  
     "Very funny, Stiles, but you've got three weeks left until school starts, and you haven't passed your pre-calculus final yet." Lydia comes over and grabs Stiles by the wrist, pulling him out of the clinic after her. "Bye, Scott!"  
     Stiles is glad that Lydia isn't treating Stiles any differently than she used to, even if it does mean getting casually manhandled all the time.   
     "Once you pass this test, I'll leave you alone. Honestly, without me, you would be a year behind the rest of us, and that would just be embarrassing, for you and for the rest of us. Except Scott. I think he'd like having an intellectual equal for once."  
     Stiles giggles at that as Lydia hustles him into her car. 

* * *

 

     He passes his test, that next Monday, easily, thanks to Lydia and to the copious amounts of downtime he had at Pleasant Valley. He'll start his senior year alongside the rest of them, though he hasn't started any of his college applications yet.   
     Lydia just glowers at him prettily when he admits that, and berates him about his totally perfect personal essay topic.  
     "Yeah, 'My Year in State Prison as a Falsely-Convicted Serial Killer,' they'll love that. What are you gonna write, 'The Time I Was Almost Murdered by a Werewolf, and How I Later Brought Him Back to Life,'?"  
     "I happen to have written quite eloquently about my near-death experience."  
     Stiles snorts. "Ambiguous answer, nice." He stretches, raising his arms above his head as high as they'll go, exposing his tattoo to Lydia's discerning eyes.  
     She squints, then holds Stiles still as she yanks down the corner of his shorts. "Mene mene tekel upharsin. Interesting."   
     "What does it mean?"  
     Lydia raises a perfectly-plucked eyebrow. "You don't know?" She sighs, flopping back on her bed next to Stiles.   
     "I didn't exactly pick it out."  
     Lydia purses her lips in a fair attempt to conceal her distaste. "It's the writing on the wall, Daniel 5:25. God has numbered thy kingdom and brought it to an end; you have been weighed in the balance and found wanting."  
     Stiles clenches his fists, nails digging into his palms. "Found wanting." 

* * *

 

     He can't sleep alone, not anymore, the sound of his own breath drives him near crazy, so he starts curling up in the recliner in his dad's room, or on Scott's bed, or Allison or Lydia's floor. His first full moon back, he falls asleep braced against one of the traincars, listening to the pack struggle and growl and eventually snuffle and snort. He wakes up in a panic, his body fairly crushed beneath Isaac's wolfy bulk, his head held steady.   
     "You were dreaming, Stiles, just dreaming, you're okay."  
     Stiles breathes through his waning terror, cataloguing his surroundings. "Sorry." His jaw is sore from being clenched. "Did I wake anyone?"  
     Isaac shakes his head sadly, shifting back. "You were completely quiet. I could smell it, though, and I'm familiar with the look." He smiles wryly, letting Stiles sit up.  
     "Thanks."

* * *

 

     He's on his knees, the relentless concrete pressing up against bruises and scrapes. He can barely breathe, and his hands are being held behind him in a vice. Rodriguo is standing before him, leering down, thrusting mercilessly. "Such a pretty mouth," he says, voice as deceptively charming as his character, "so glad you're being given a chance to put it to proper use."

* * *

 

     The absolute first thing Stiles does when he gets out is to shave his head, to get rid of (in)convienient handholds and to rid himself of hands, fingers, twisted, jerking, painful--  
     All gone, he tells himself. All gone.   
     There's a new line, though, a scar running from the corner of his left eye to just above his right ear, the result of a particularly viscious fall (push) down icy metal stairs. It stands out starkly against his scalp, it causes his dad to pour an extra glass of whiskey, it makes Lydia purse her lips in that subtle grimace, but to Stiles it's merely the much lesser of two evils.  
     Scott thinks it looks badass. 

* * *

 

     In November Allison gives them a tip, that some hunters are coming into town, different from the Argents, more versatile in their prey and more loose with their methods. She relays her dad's message, for them to lay low.   
     They do their best, but Derek goes out to keep an eye on them, and Stiles follows. He likes sitting with Derek. He's happy to let Stiles pick the stakeout music, and he eats curly fries with an intensity that Stiles thinks is practically adorable.  
     One of them, though, one of the three, splits off to the dive bar by the motel, and Stiles leaves Derek without a word, wanting to ease the Alpha's mind.   
     The hunter drinks a fair amount, but not enough that he doesn't look up when Peter walks in, reeking of supernatural. Stiles makes an executive decision, to distract the hunter before he can process fully the extent of Peter's weird.   
     On his way over, Stiles glares heartily at the older Hale, who just leers back, rasing his newly-acquired beer in a slight toast.   
     Stiles slides onto the seat next to the hunter, batting his thick lashes over his bambi-wide eyes, and next thing he knows he's got the guy's hands gripping mercilessly his skull as Stiles sucks him off in the bathroom.   
     He can feel Derek's rage as he follows the hunter back into his hotel room.

     Stiles is banned from pack business, but not after he gets a three-hour lecture about self respect from Derek. Stiles thinks it's a little ironic, but when he voices that thought the whole pack growls at him.  
     He holes up with Lydia and Allison for a few days, as they see that his actions were entirely practical, even if they doesn't fully agree with Stiles' methods-- the hunters did move on without any incident the following morning, didn't they?  
     He just rolls his eyes as Allison pointedly plays Ani DiFranco, and eats all of her strawberries.

* * *

 

     School is opressive, like prison, only slightly less cruel, but Stiles goes, if just to avoid Lydia's rage. He finds himself pulling away from Scott and the rest of the pack, spending far too much time being all scholarly.   
     Lydia is a bad influence, Stiles thinks, but by New Years' they've both got early admission to top schools, so he can't be bothered. He accepts his place at Yale, as far from California as possible, and doesn't tell anyone for three months. 

* * *

 

     He gets a Christmas card from Rodriguo, a picture of the pathetic prison christmas tree with a simple "you miss me? xxx" scrawled on the back, and Stiles takes great joy in burning it.  
     The anniversary of his mom's death passes soon after that, which he no longer blames on himself, so at least prison had some positive effect.   
     For his birthday celebrations a few weeks later, Lydia drives him to the train depot and forces him to make nice with the pack, who welcome him back with open (guilty) arms. They then spend the day feeding him pizza and fries, and Stiles almost forgets that his last birthday was spent primarily in the hospital medical bay, the tattoo on his hip, raw and aching, his only present.

* * *

 

     And then they're graduating, and Lydia is heading to Cambridge on full scholarship, and Scott is going to UC Santa Barbara, and Stiles is off to New Haven with his very own bulldog puppy because Lydia has a sick sense of humour and too much money.   
     Stiles doesn't like being away from the pack, doesn't like being so far from his dad, but he's as far away from Pleasant Valley as he can possibly be without leaving the country, and that makes up for it tenfold.

 


End file.
